The Mediterranean diet, with its mix of fresh fruit and vegetables, grilled fish and olive oil, may soon be included on Unesco's world heritage list. The diet, which has a low meat content, is hailed as part of Europe's cultural heritage, and is praised for its healthy components. In light of this and continuing discussion about the ethics of meat eating, we have asked Comment is free readers for their take on vegetarianism from a personal perspective as part of our People's panel series (you can read our previous readers' panels here).

Because of the personal nature of the debate, moderation will be strict.

Alison Boston

I stopped eating meat shortly after moving out of a flatshare with an Ecuadorian vegetarian who threatened to strangle me when he saw me opening a tin of tuna. "If you were a man, I'd, I'd …" he screamed, his hands poised round my neck. "How dare you eat that poor little fish who did nothing to you?" Tuna? Little?

The menacing vegetarian was also a meditation teacher and I wondered if he had somehow imbued my karma with anti meat-eating vibrations, because shortly after that incident I became uninterested in eating the little poultry and Spanish jamon that was in my diet.

I'd quit most red meat many years before – except lamb, which I relinquished after stumbling upon several spring lambs playing king-of-the-castle on a large mossy boulder high in the Buda Hills. They were so full of life, I swore I could never again eat one of those delightful creatures.

The further I get from my last steak, the more selective I am about my food. Shopping requires reading labels thoroughly. All dairy products must be organic, and all eggs free range. I want nothing to do with animal slavery, it turns my stomach.

This brings us to the cost issue. Vegetarianism is not expensive, it's cheaper. The Food Standards Agency recommends that vegetarians eat a couple of Brazil nuts a day to meet selenium needs, while essential amino acids are found in simple, inexpensive food combinations like beans on whole wheat toast. Shelled hemp seeds, which alone provide essential amino acids, are also packed with protein, as well as iron, magnesium and Omegas 3, 6 and 9. At £5.50 per 250 grams, a sprinkle of hemp seeds delivers good value nutrition. And they go with everything!

I'm not evangelical or fanatical about my choices, though I do know hemp fields feed more people, more economically than beef cattle pastures. And I do think it's rude if vegetarian dishes are not on offer; shallow if there's limited variety. Quitting meat is for me a deeply personal choice; I don't want to eat a warm-blooded animal, with eyes that I could look into, even if I've never met the creature face-to-face.

Why do so many people act a bit weird when they find out I'm a vegetarian? I've been informed it is because I "don't look like a vegetarian". Which means:

a) You do not conform to my idea of a vegetarian, mainly because

b) You're fat

I am fat, because vegetarian food isn't healthy. At least not for consumers, I think the cows feel the benefit. Everyone eats vegetarian food: chocolate, chips, pasta. So why do I get given so much grief?

Carnivores seem to have a need to make veggies justify their choice. They expect me to know about meat production and can get really aggressive about it. When I said that "lamb" is actually a full-grown animal, the farmer among us told me I was wrong. They are about a year old and don't have permanent incisor teeth – so they're not fully-grown. So nyah! Like he'd got one over on me. Why would I know that?! I don't need to know, I am not eating it.

They also try to justify themselves, usually by saying "I don't eat much meat myself …" I don't care, and I doubt the bloody pig does either. They also spout things like: "I only eat organic, free-range meat." It's still dead though, isn't it? It still went through an appalling process just so you can have a bacon butty.

Then there's the classic: "If you were starving, would you eat meat?" I don't know, I've never been in that situation. One idiot kept on and on about it until I told him that yes, yes I would. Not only would I eat human flesh, but I would happily slash his throat, dismember him and eat his scorched cadaver flesh while his decapitated head watched me do it. And I would do this if Sainsbury's ran out of tofu.

Carnivores are so hypocritical. What's the difference between eating pig, rat or any other species? Why eat tuna but not dolphin? Because dolphins are smiley and do tricks? If you like it, eat it. Oh, and if you eat fish, you're not vegetarian. They have a heartbeat, for goodness sake.

The curious ones ask, "But what do you eat?" I eat what everyone else eats but without the dead stuff. There is no need to miss meat if you stop eating it. You can get just about everything in a veggie version. You can get vegetarian haggis, for God's sakes. If it helps save the planet, wouldn't you do without for one or two days a week? I think my dad thinks if he eats vegetarian food it'll instantly mean he's gay, but that's not true, honest.

At university, someone discovered I had a girlfriend and asked the standard: "So what do you do in bed?". The conversation moved on and when the idiot asked, "But what do you eat?" I said: "Muff" and walked off.

On holiday in Poland we got a forewarning of what it would be like to be vegetarians on the continent. My Dad examined the huge menu on the wall of a Krakow cafe and told us: "There's beetroot … hot or cold."

My partner and I have been living in France for over six years now and have had the beetroot episode happen a number of times – though we can now do our own translations. Living in a rural part of the country (joke from bordering Brittany: "The world's ending? I'm moving to Mayenne, everything happens 10 years later there") as opposed to a city makes veggie life even trickier. Big French cities do cater for vegetarians – French ones do exist. At an eco-festival we even once met a pale, frail, almost translucent, vegan. But out here in the country, we simply find incomprehension. On making it clear that we are veggies and would like our meal sans viande ni poisson, we've still been served with ham, prawns, smoked salmon, various seafood, bacon – as though it would be rude to serve our salads or omelettes without. This gets repeated when invited for aperitifs – the hosts want to give us their best. Once, we were presented with a huge range of porky titbits from the family's own raised-and-slaughtered pig. We stuck to the peanuts.

For British friends who are ex-veggies, living in France didn't cause the change – but they're more than happy to now be in meat heaven. This applies a little to us. Our chickens and ducks are happy to give us their eggs, so no problem there. But although we feel guilty about eating dairy products (we can get straight-from-the-cow milk and cream from a nearby farm, not to mention France's one cheese for every day of the year) how can we possibly go that next, soya, step? Our bellies have fought our morals and won. Maybe one day the straight-from-our-garden, potatoes, beans and, yes, hot or cold beetroot will be enough – without that blob of delicious local butter melting on top.

I've been vegan for over six years, having become vegetarian in my teens. I love animals and detest cruelty, but the decision to give up meat came as a result of some research into cannibalism on Easter Island (Eater Island?). I distinctly remember my mum serving pork chops, and pondering what a human leg, arm or liver might taste like. Delicious, probably. I couldn't finish them.

The step towards veganism came quite naturally. I learned more about the dairy industry and for the first time considered the origins of my food, quickly deciding – with a little gentle persuasion from a vegan internet friend – that veganism was where it's at. I abhor animal cruelty and discovered some sickening tales which I challenge anybody to try to read and ignore.

At first I found it difficult to navigate foodstuffs, especially as I was newly fending for myself and teaching myself to cook as I went along. I had to work out what I could and couldn't clean my toilet with, and, more importantly, what alcohol I could imbibe (beer and wine are laced with isinglass and albumen). Without trying to be "vegangelical", I reckon it's something everybody should have a go at.

I find the most difficult thing about being vegan is the attitudes of other people, often affronted by some judgment they assume I am making about them. Complete strangers are quick to point out that I am wearing leather boots (they aren't, they're vegetarian para boots) and start trying to catch me out or telling me that I'm simply not healthy (I assure you that I am perfectly so). I tend not to mention my diet unless it's directly relevant – for example to rebut the repeated offer of Kit Kats in the workplace.

I think vegans get bad press for our soybean-munching ways, aiding the destruction of the Amazon and suchlike. Though I can't profess to be a green hero, I eat very few soya products myself and would suggest that vegans in general are more switched on to where their food comes from and are more likely to eat organic, locally sourced fruit and vegetables.

When you're a Muslim and faced with school dinners, it's easier to pretend to be vegetarian rather than explain what halal meat is to a lunchtime supervisor. My older sisters were forced to eat pork sausages at school because their dinner ladies thought they were being picky by saying they only ate "some" types of meat. Declaring I was vegetarian meant I got an extra portion of chips, or if I was luckily, a second pudding and that's where my life as a "fake veggie" began.

At school I'd pick at boiled carrots and mashed potato, and at home, feast on mince and rice. Then as I hit my teens I was drawn into American straight edge culture. It wasn't the punk rock that appealed, but the notion of having a clean body by not intoxicating it with drugs, alcohol or meat. It also gained me street cred with the lads at college. But while to this day I've never done the drinking or drugs, there was a secret that I kept from my friends; I was still eating meat at home – although this was just twice a year on Eid, when my mum made tandoori chicken.

At university I was "bullied" for being vegetarian (even though I wasn't fully veggie). One morning I woke up to find my kitchen cupboards graffitied in "anti-vegetarian porn", so after a year of living in halls, I moved into a house with five vegetarian friends. Here I could no longer "fake it" but it didn't bother me as sharing communal meals together was wonderful. It was then that I announced to my family that I was giving up meat, even the ceremonial chicken. To this day no meat hasn't passed my lips.

Many years after I graduated I went for a meal with one of my old veggie house mates. To my surprise she ordered lamb and revealed that although she had claimed to be vegetarian at university, she had secretly been eating meat in private. Since then I've come to realise that a lot of vegetarians are the same: fakes.

• The topic for our next reader's panel will be announced next Monday in an open thread. Stay tuned if you would like to participate